Nothing better to be doing on a hot summer's day than slaughtering good National Socialists

[alexsarll]

Finally went to Duckie last night. Been meaning to check it out for ages, on the grounds that they send me the most awesome mix CDs, but the idea of trying to organise a South-of-the-river jaunt on a Saturday night didn't appeal, so I've been waiting for someone else to suggest it. And this week, someone did. The crowd was more conventional gay club than I'd expected - perhaps a lot of people use it as a relatively early and quiet start for an extended Vauxhall bender? - but the music...wow. I don't remember a single song which actively sucked, and at one point the run went 'Digging Your Scene' (Blow Monkeys) - 'Young Folks' (Peter, Bjorn & John) - 'Intergalactic' (Beastie Boys) - 'I'm Not Dead Scared' (Eighth Wonder). And people danced!
On the nightbus, when I dozed off, a chap picked up my book and started looking at it. Which I consider rather cheeky, as my face clearly registered when we got to my stop and I came to - poor sod looked quite ridiculously apologetic.

Interesting, though alas no longer surprising, emphasis in al Guardian's coverage of Osama bin Laden's latest Youtube effort. Presumably because the single most important issue in modern politics is not to seem like "cheerleaders for Washington's neocons" they choose to emphasise Osama's "knowledge of US politics and current affairs" (not like that silly George Bush, I assume to be the implication - and have you noticed that he looks a bit like a chimpanzee?) rather than, you know, the call for America to embrace Islam as the only way to end his hostilities and abandon Western leaders' talk of freedom and human rights. I guess mentioning that might be taken to suggest that he doesn't have rational, limited goals related to Western foreign policy in the Middle East and, I don't know, somehow make him out to just maybe be the bad guy?

I have no particular analysis of The Big Heat to promote, but this was a short entry so I might as well note that I saw it yesterday and it's extremely good.

Comments

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

I shall poke you in the nose. POKE!

Bored now.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Back to looking for dead mices you go...

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Noooo! I wonder if mummy will come round and do it instead?

My carpet have BLOOD! WAH! Goth carpet.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

You should keep all the skulls and make a necklace.

[kiss-me-quick.livejournal.com]

'I'm Not Dead' (Eighth Wonder)

I'm Not Dead? Was this the lesser known follow-up to I'm Not Scared then?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Current mood: still drunk

I shall amend it now.

[amuchmoreexotic.livejournal.com]

Interesting, though alas no longer surprising, emphasis in al Guardian's coverage of Osama bin Laden's latest Youtube effort. Presumably because the single most important issue in modern politics is not to seem like "cheerleaders for Washington's neocons" they choose to emphasise Osama's "knowledge of US politics and current affairs".

Isn't the point there not that they admire him, but that it shows he is still alive and in touch with the outside world, rather than pre-recorded a year ago or isolated in a cave?

Saying the Guardian supports fundamentalist Islam is the new saying the Tories are the same as the Nazis.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, did you miss that incident a year or so back where they let a trainee who was a member of Hizb ut Tahrir write an editorial? Or the commentisfree article a month or so back which was positively gleeful that Iraqis who worked with Western forces were getting killed? I know publicansdecoy linked to the latter.
I don't think the Guardian as a whole actively supports fundamentalist islam, but I do think that, in keeping with much of the old left which forms their reader base, they've got so tangled up in the belief that America is the root of all evil that it leaves them almost wilfully blind to other threats, particularly those which also have their own reasons to oppose the US. The BBC report finds space to mention the current affairs references which confirm that the tape is recent; the Guardian article omits bin Laden's demands, which are surely a key detail of the story. Unless they've put an outright incompetent on what surely has to be considered a major news story, there must presumably be an agenda (not necessarily a conscious one, mind) behind that omission. What is that agenda if not unwillingness to accept the allegedly 'neocon' take on the extent of the fundamentalists' aims?
So yeah, 'al Guardian' is an oversimplification, and a cheap dig. But for as long as they keep publishing post-plot Steve Bell, I reckon oversimplifications and cheap digs at their expense are fair game.